A Friend in the Dark
by anonamika
Summary: Post S05E11, set six months after Reunification. Letters sent between Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Penitentiary. Or, how Dr. Quinzel's letter writing program gets Ed more sun, feeds Oswald's plants and helps them rebuild more than just an empire while incarcerated. [Nygmobblepot, Ed/Oswald, epistolary slow burn]
1. Chapter 1: Wednesday October 15

A/N: After I finished laughing angrily about the ridiculousness of them being separated for ten years, this happened. Also being posted on AO3, under the same username.

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**Wednesday October 15**

Oswald,

It's been storming all day but if it clears up, we might get half an hour outside in the yard. Dr. Quinzel thinks there should be more outdoor time for the inmates and there are semi-significant bets among the guards on her fighting the higher-ups for a garden. Bizarre. She's read our files. Don't think I'm getting any gardening tools anytime soon.

She's kind, I suppose, especially compared to the other staff, the thugs and personality deficits that they are. Far better than Strange, of course. I even almost believe her when she says this exercise will be completely confidential. Our eyes only. But she's ambitious and idealistic. Which we both know can prove a stupidly dangerous combination in Gotham. She uses the word "recovery" without any irony and even sees that vegetable Jeremiah for one-one-sessions. I wonder what they talk about.

I apologize, I'm rambling.

It's been a while since I've written anything down.

Dr. Quinzel has assigned us a therapy assignment, which technically is a condition to maintain the "outdoor privileges" I mentioned. I doubt that was her decision but compromise is the lifeblood of progress in this hellish place. She gave us a choice—which I suspect is a variable in her experimentation with treating the criminally insane—between journaling or writing a letter to someone. This someone could be real or imagined, she said. Ha!

I try to keep busy but all I have are my thoughts and the white pills they watch us swallow and the mirror in the men's room so the thoughts go round and round, even when I dream. I have no desire to see them repeated back to me on paper. Boring!

How is your eye? What is your cell like? Is the food better than the slop here? Even with the donations from the Wayne foundation after Reunification, it's all canned or frozen, bland or chemical. Except for the almost fresh parsnips this week but I find them disgusting and a health hazard besides considering the hygiene-ignorant brute manning the serving station. I'd kill for an espresso or real butter on real bread. (Just a figure of speech, Doctor, if you read this after all.)

I would appreciate a response. The return postage is already paid for if we write to "real" people and anything mailed with the enclosed label will supposedly be sent directly to Dr. Quinzel to hand out without any prying eyes. She will be over the moon if this pet project of hers has any rate of success, which means time outside and away from the shrieking and stink of the recreation room. And maybe even extra jello, a means to a friend in the cafeteria.

I know the value of friends in the dark.

Ed Nygma

_**My life can be measured in hours, I serve by being devoured.**_

_**Thin, I am quick. Fat, I am slow. And wind is my foe. What am I?**_

_**I burn end to end, the nights break and the days bend. What am I?**_

_**Do you still believe in ghosts, Oswald? —R**_


	2. Chapter 2: Sunday October 19

**A/N: **Oswald is a verbose little shit but this was fun. Imagining them waiting for these letters is the worst and the best part of the process. Your comments and thoughts are, as always, so appreciated

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**Chapter 2: Sunday October 19**

Dear Ed,

Thank you for your letter. It is so good to hear from you, even if the circumstances of your writing are all but gentle coercion. I feared that any correspondence between us would be closely monitored by the forces that moved against our plans. Indeed, other missives I have sent out in hopes of reaching those not fooled by Jim or that showpony Dent's vendetta against us have yet to be answered. Yet, the fact that I received your letter at all and without any obvious signs of censorship or tampering gives me hope that Dr. Quinzel's promise of discretion, if not outright privacy, will be honoured. I hope that you receive this letter in a similarly immaculate condition, and the fresh air and jello that is your due.

My eye is well enough, continuing to heal at what even the seen-it-all doctor here says is a remarkable rate. Maybe it's all the dips in the river? There's something about the water here, my mother always said.

Don't blame yourself, Ed, if you're thinking of blaming yourself. As soon as the ridiculous charges against us have been put straight, I will have Strange tracked down and see if he can put his sick gifts to use and furnish me a new eye. I was thinking something in blue.

Though, as fate would have it, the eye or lack of it has earned me some measure of respect. Some of these actual criminals still hold onto old, misplaced and, frankly, overblown grudges but to see it and the scarring makes them remember that the Penguin stood for something while they almost scurried to safety with the injured and the children. Or only came back when things were safe like the cowards that they are.

My cell is a box of metal and concrete with a toilet, a sink and no sense of privacy but there's a window that looks out at the rec yard and fences. I also have a metal table where I'm writing this letter. There was some skirmish in the women's wing and we've been sent to our cells hours before the standard lights out. Luckily, they've left the lights on in the hall, no doubt to prevent a riot at being herded in here halfway through some sports event on the rec room tv, and I have no cellmate to complain of the scratching of my pen. It's a sharp little thing I traded three cigarettes for. A steep price but it also served as a good lesson in feeling my way through the threads that make up this particular web.

The smell of sweat, old blood and bleach seems to be everywhere in varying, awful degrees. Even the burnt coffee they serve leaves the taste of pennies in one's mouth but the caffeine gives me clarity. You know, there was a time where I hated coffee and now, I look forward to the rush of even the instant swill.

The food, you may be glad to hear, is not that much better than Arkham's fare. Canned and frozen, of course, and miserable powdered items that have no business being associated with the words "milk" and "eggs". There is coleslaw that I've seen cut out of vacuum-sealed bags marked with labels for mainland relief, which they mix with a slop they call "dressing-based sauce".

I would do horrible, non-figurative things for cold gin or chocolate cake. For now, there are the delightful options of the noxious prison wine some Royal Flush degenerate has been making in the upstairs bathroom and the pudding mix sachets at the commissary. Of course, it's criminally understocked and woefully managed. Despite my verifiable credentials of managing a range of clubs and, at one point, _the whole damned city_, I've been relegated to the laundry room for work assignment. Loading and unloading sheets and uniforms is repetitive, monotonous work that does nothing for my leg, brace or not, but the roar of the machines are not so loud that one doesn't hear the most interesting conversations.

To answer another set of questions, though I'm not sure if they are yours (or...his?), I believe the answer to your riddle is 'candle'. And yes, I do still believe in ghosts. I've seen my mother in my dreams. It is painful and wonderful, and always portent somehow. I like to think it's her watching over me through the veil. She came to me the night before I avenged her, you know? Now, I see her taking tea at the manor and laughing as someone plays the piano. In the good dreams, anyway.

What do you see in the mirror in the men's room? If you'd rather not talk about that, I've always wanted to ask, what was your mother like?

You need not talk about that either.

I fear I have written too much and yet said nothing at all. The days bleed together, feeling more like periods of waiting and watching and sleeping. Though the writing is a welcome relief. And I do so like this pen.

How is the yard? Any further word on a garden? Have you had sessions with Dr. Quinzel? Well-intentioned or not, her eagerness to "rehabilitate" even the likes of Valeska makes me wary of her prodding at your brilliant mind.

Oh.

The lights just went off. The men are buzzing like angry hornets and the guards have started clanging at the bars with their clubs for quiet. I have some moonlight but it's wiser to end here, lest this get confiscated if a guard is in a mood.

Remember our pact, Ed. Together.

Your friend, in the dark and beyond it,

Oswald Cobblepot


End file.
